TEAM REPORTS (DAYTONA, FLA.) - DLP HDTV's Yeley Finishes 16th in Budweiser Shootout

J.J. Yeley, driver of the No. 96 DLP HDTV Toyota Camry, finished 16th in Saturday night’s Budweiser Shootout NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race at Daytona (Fla.) International Speedway.

The Budweiser Shootout is a non-point, exhibition race featuring pole winners from the previous Sprint Cup season and past Budweiser Shootout winners. This year’s field included an event-record 23 drivers.

Yeley started 11th in the 70-lap race, but handling and tire issues hampered his efforts in getting to victory lane.

“We started out being real conservative and making sure we didn’t have any tire issues,” said Yeley, who earned his Shootout berth by winning his first career Sprint Cup pole on June 15, 2007 at Michigan International Speedway. “In practice, we made 23 laps and delaminated the right front (tire), so we just took it easy in the first part. The car drove really good, maybe we just had it too secure. We struggled with the car being really loose yesterday, so we freed it up a little bit and probably didn’t go quite far enough. We still had a little bit of a tire issue – the right-front blistered a little bit as did the right-rear. We were just kind of riding around out there, taking it easy. At that point, we knew we didn’t have a car that was capable of winning.”

Unfortunately, the night wasn’t completely without incident.

On lap 65, Kurt Busch spun in Turns 3 and 4 ahead of Yeley. In trying to avoid the incident, Yeley made contact with Ryan Newman, causing minor damage to each car.

“We just wanted to make sure we brought it back in one piece,” Yeley said. “For the most part, it’s not too bad. We got in the back of Newman when the ‘2’ car wrecked. We’ll take this one back and I think we’ve got a good car for the ‘500.’ We’ll see how we qualify tomorrow.”

Despite the disappointing finish, the Shootout gave Yeley and the DLP HDTV team valuable knowledge for next week’s 50th running of the Daytona 500.

“I learned that the cars just move around a lot more than the old ones,” Yeley said. “It takes a little while to get acclaimed to it. We just didn’t have enough off the corner and I don’t know why we were struggling there. I’ll sit down with the Brandon (Thomas, crew chief) and look at it.”

Dale Earnhardt Jr., making his debut for Hendrick Motorsports, led seven times for a race-high 47 laps en route to his second Budweiser Shootout victory. He also won the event in 2003 while driving for Dale Earnhardt Inc. Tony Stewart finished .136 of a second behind Earnhardt, while Jimmie Johnson, Jeff Gordon and Reed Sorenson rounded out the top-five. Casey Mears, Dave Blaney, Mark Martin, Denny Hamlin and Kasey Kahne comprised the remainder of the top-10.

Next up for Hall of Fame Racing is Daytona 500 qualifying, where Yeley will be among 54 drivers going for the pole for the 50th Daytona 500. Yeley drew fifth in the qualifying order. Qualifying starts at 1:15 p.m. EST on Sunday with live coverage provided by FOX. The Gatorade Duel – twin 150-lap races which will set the field for the Daytona 500 – takes place at 2 p.m. on Thursday, Feb. 14 with live coverage on SPEED. Speedweeks culminates with the Daytona 500 at 3:30 p.m. on Sunday, Feb. 17, which can also be seen live on FOX. All events will be broadcast in high-definition.